Clodagh Finn: Is another statue the best way to honour our revolutionary women?

How do you rectify the myriad wrongs and decades-long sin of omission that have been perpetrated against women of the revolutionary period from early 1900s to the Civil War and far beyond?

‘Shoes on the Danube Bank’ in Budapest is a chilling reminder of the hardship Hungarian Jews faced at the hands of the Arrow Cross.

Sat, 11 Apr, 2026 - 01:00

Clodagh Finn

Clodagh Finn is a journalist, writer and collector of stories. Her recent book, The Irish in the Resistance, co-authored with John Morgan, shines a light on the forgotten contributions of the Irish who resisted Hitler during WW2.

Shoes on the Danube Bank is one of the most thought-provoking and evocative pieces of public art I have ever seen.

As the title suggests, it is a display of some 60 pairs of shoes, cast in iron, which are scattered along the river embankment in Budapest to commemorate the thousands of Hungarian Jews who were ordered to remove their footwear before being shot and thrown in the water by members of the fascist Arrow Cross militia in 1944.